Your rights and privacy

Each debt is a different story about people, conversations, agreements, promises and good intentions. It’s just that those intentions went wrong somewhere.

At Baycorp we believe that the more information you have available, the easier it is to lift the burden of debt and make the right decisions.

Your rights and responsibilities

Legally, responsibility lies with you when it comes to paying your debts on time, and you shouldn’t deliberately avoid your obligations.

Sometimes it also helps to get assistance from a community-based financial counsellor, solicitor or other qualified adviser who might be able to help. Across Australia and New Zealand there are several non-profit organisations that can help you with financial advice. If you are struggling with unmanageable debt we suggest taking a look at some of these websites.

Australia

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) and Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC) offer a booklet on ‘Dealing with debt: your rights and responsibilities’ which can be viewed here.

The Commerce Commission website provides an overview of your rights and responsibilities under the Fair Trading Act. Click here for the overview.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has a summary of Your Privacy and can be found here.

Our promise

At Baycorp our aim is to help you lift the burden of debt because as uncomfortable as debt is, resolving it once and for all, is a great feeling.

We respect that your debt is your business, so when you are dealing with us, you can always expect to be treated fairly, with respect and courtesy. We will not unduly harass or coerce you about debts owed.

At Baycorp are committed to protecting your privacy

As part of that commitment we aim to comply fully with the Australian Privacy Principles for the fair handling of personal information, as set out in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) (”the Act”) as amended by the Privacy Amendment (Enhancing Privacy Protection) Act 2012 in relation to its activities in Australia.

This privacy policy explains how we comply with the Australian Privacy Principles. It details how we collect personal information, how we maintain, use, disclose and secure that information and destroy information that is no longer needed. It also provides detail about your privacy rights along with our general rights and obligations and our policy in relation to your personal information we keep on record.

You can find the complete version of the Australian Privacy Principles and the Privacy Act at www.oaic.gov.au

Collecting your Personal Information

We collect your personal information when we perform debt collection services for ourselves and our clients. We will also collect your personal information for marketing purposes, quality assurance and continuous improvement.

We also collect personal information from people who submit applications, register interest for employment with Baycorp or to whom we offer employment.

We will not collect your personal information unless it is related to our debt collection services or to consider you for employment with us.

Where reasonably possible, we shall collect personal information directly from you. If this is not possible your personal information may be collected from other sources, including publications and databases that are publicly or commercially available. In some cases, your personal information may be provided to us by other persons such as credit reporting agencies, our external dispute resolution scheme, our clients or persons who may know you and are able to provide us with information. This may include family members, friends, colleagues or referees.

Where we collect the information from these other persons, we will take reasonable steps to ensure you are made aware of how to contact us to access the information, how and why we collected the information and what we will do with it.

In certain circumstances, we may also collect sensitive information such as health information. We only collect sensitive information with your consent or where we are otherwise entitled to do so.

We may also monitor telephone conversations for training and quality purposes. Please inform the operator if you do not wish your call to be monitored. When a call is monitored it may be recorded. Any recorded calls are only retained for training and quality purposes.

Use and Disclosure of Information

We will limit our use of your personal information to the performance of our debt collection activities, to provide debt collection services, for continuous improvement and quality assurance purposes, for marketing and to consider you for employment and/or in fulfilling our legal obligations.

We only disclose your personal information with your express or implied consent, or where we are entitled or required to do so by law. The types of third parties we may disclose your personal information to in the performance of our debt collection activities include:

• service providers where we outsource functions such as process serving, repossession, mailing houses and mercantile agents.

These organisations are limited in their use of your personal information to the purposes of those activities specified above only.

If we collect your personal information in Australia, we may send your personal information to our group companies in New Zealand, the Philippines or the United States of America for the purpose of assisting us with the performance of our debt collection activities in Australia.

If we collect your personal information in New Zealand, we may send your personal information to our group companies in Australia, the Philippines or the United States of America for the purpose of assisting us with the performance of our debt collection activities in New Zealand.

We may also sometimes need to send your personal information to an organisation in another country for the purpose of assisting us with the performance of our debt collection activities.

We will only transfer your personal information to another country in accordance with the law.

Information Quality and Security

If we have accurate information about you, it enables us to provide you with the best possible service.

We take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal information is accurate, complete and up to date. Please contact us if you believe the personal information we hold about you is not accurate, complete or up-to-date. You can find details on how to contact us in the “Contacting Us” section below.

We will protect the personal information we hold about you from misuse or loss, unauthorised access, modification or disclosure. We have a range of physical, electronic and procedural safeguards to protect the personal information we hold.

Our security measures include:

• requiring that all personal information is stored securely;

• restricting access to our computer systems and requiring that employees use logins and passwords for access to all systems;

• using firewalls and other network security measures within our computer systems;

We will destroy or de-identify any personal information when the information is no longer needed or required by us for any purpose. If we no longer require your personal information we will shred that information held on hardcopy and delete from our systems of all electronic information stored on media.

Access to Personal Information

You may request access to your personal information that we hold about you. All requests for information must be in writing. You can find details on how to contact us in the “Contacting Us” section below.

We will need to verify your identify before giving you access to your personal information. We will respond to your request within a reasonable time.

We do not charge you a fee to provide you with your personal information.

In certain circumstances, we are permitted by the Acts to deny requests for access, or limit the access we provide. If we refuse or limit your access to your personal information, we will provide you with an explanation.

Transfer of Requests

Where your personal information is not held by Baycorp but is believed by the person dealing with the request to be held by another agency, Baycorp will transfer the request promptly to the other agency not later than 10 working days after the day on which the request is received by Baycorp. This is only applicable to New Zealand.

Recruitment Privacy

By submitting an application or registering interest for employment with Baycorp you will supply us with personal information that is subject to data protection legislation in Australia or New Zealand as the case may be and in the country in which you are based.

Personal information may be transferred to other jurisdictions with different data protection laws. You should be aware that:

1. Once submitted we will use your personal information for the following purposes:

• to assess and administer your application for employment in accordance with our standard recruitment practices, including conducting psychometric testing and reference checks.

• to communicate with you in relation to your application.

• to monitor and review our recruitment practices.

2. If your application is unsuccessful we may retain your information on file in case a more appropriate opportunity becomes available. You are free to contact us if you do not wish us to retain your information.

3. You can contact us by phone, fax, mail or email and request access to your personal information. In normal circumstances, we will give you full access to your personal information, however there may be some legal or administrative reason to deny you access - in which case we will tell you our reason.

4. You may request amendments, corrections or deletions if your personal information is inaccurate, outdated or incomplete.

5. You are not required by law to disclose your personal information to us, but we may not be able to accept or process your application for employment if you do not supply this information.

Correction of Information

We take reasonable steps to ensure that all personal information we hold about you is accurate, complete and up to date. You may ask us at any time to correct personal information held by us about you, which you believe is incorrect or out of date. You can find details on how to contact us in the “Contact Us” section below. In accordance with our obligations under the privacy laws, we will deal with such requests within a reasonable period after the request is made.

If we disagree as to the accuracy of the information, you may request that we attach a statement to that information noting that you consider it is not accurate, complete or up to date.

External Disputes

If you are dissatisfied with the outcome of your request for correction of personal information, or you have made a complaint in relation to the way we have handled your personal information, and you are dissatisfied with the outcome of that complaint, you may contact our External Dispute Resolution provider:

If you have any questions, concerns or complaints about our Privacy Policy or you wish to request access to or correction of any of your personal information that we hold about you, please contact us by any of the following methods:

We take our privacy obligations seriously. We deal with all privacy breaches reported to us in accordance with our Incident Management Policy and in accordance with best practise as dictated in the Data breach notification – A guide to handling personal information security breaches, published by the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner in April 2012.

This Privacy Policy was last updated 24 June 2016

Acceptance

This site ("Site") is owned by Baycorp (referred to on the Site as "we", "us" or "our"). Use of our Site is subject to the following terms and conditions of access to and use of the Site ("Terms of Access"). By accessing and browsing the Site you represent that you have read, understood and accepted these Terms of Access and agree to be bound by them. If you do not agree to these Terms of Access please do not use our Site.

Changes

We reserve the right, at our discretion, to update or revise these Terms of Access. Please check the Terms of Access periodically for changes. Your continued use of this Site following the posting of any changes to the Terms of Access indicates your acceptance of those changes.

Jurisdiction

Your access to, and use of, the Site is governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Australia or New Zealand, whichever is applicable, and you agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts in Australia or New Zealand, whichever is applicable.

Intellectual property rights

You acknowledge and agree that all content and material available on the Site is protected by copyrights, trade marks or other intellectual property rights and laws. No content or material on the Site may be reproduced, adapted, linked to, distributed or used in any way without our prior written consent. However, you may print or download one copy of the materials or content on this site on any single computer for your personal, non-commercial use, provided you keep intact all copyright and other proprietary notices.

Links

We have not reviewed all or any of the sites linked to the Site and are not responsible for the contents of any those sites. We request that you seek permission prior to linking to this site. Your linking to this site is at your own risk.

General disclaimer

Whilst we have endeavoured to ensure that the content and material on the Site is free from error, we do not warrant its accuracy, adequacy or completeness or that it is suitable for your intended use. This Site may not be continuously available.

Liability exclusion

Your use of the Site is at your own risk. By using this site, you agree that we are not responsible for any damage or harm arising out of your use of the Site. You also agree that all warranties, conditions and representations in respect of the Site (express or implied) are excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law.